What do the sources from Nag Hammadi really say about the Invisible Spirit, Barbeló, Seta, Christ and man’s path to the light

Much can be written about Sethianism. They can be defined, systematized, included in the history of Gnosticism, and explained using modern theories. However, this article chooses a different approach. His question is simpler and at the same time more challenging: What do the texts themselves really say?

The basis here is a control version of the Codex Nag Hammadi – a Gnostic study, especially texts in which characters and motifs associated with Set, Barbeló, the Invisible Spirit, Autogen, the Archons, the Seta tribe and the path of knowledge appear. At the same time, the set itself points out that square brackets indicate reconstructed places where the original text is damaged or not preserved. Therefore, it is necessary to read these passages with the awareness that not all words have the same degree of textual certainty.

It is also necessary to say something important at the very beginning. The texts that we are going to read here are not one book and do not speak with one voice. The Apocryphon of John develops a vast cosmology. The Gospel of the Egyptians puts the Great Invisible Spirit, Barbeló, Autogenus and Seth at the center. The Revelation of Adam tells of the loss of the first knowledge and of Seth as a member of the „great generation“.  The three stelae of Seth have a hymnic and liturgical character. Zostrianos, Marsanes, Allogenes and the Trimorphic Protennoia open up other forms of the path to transcendent reality. In the codex itself, these texts are indeed found next to each other, but their literary form and emphasis differ.

Therefore, the goal is not to create an artificially perfectly unified system. If the texts speak in the same way, we will record their agreement. If they are different, we will leave the difference.